A million thanks, Franklin Einspruch, for this incisive commentary. It was exactly what I needed at this moment; indeed, its impact was such that upon reading the email version I felt compelled to navigate to your blog to resume my paid subscription, which I had put on hold because of the ballooning costs of maintaining so many various subscriptions.
As a Jew whose academic specialization was/is German literature, philosophy and culture, I have been disgusted by the specious comparisons made between Hitler and Trump, fascism and American democracy, false equivalencies that circulate widely throughout the progressive circles of today. Even some of my German friends, working academics whose field of expertise is antisemitism and the rise of Nazism, resort to such analogies. It's hugely disappointing--horrifying, in fact-- to me. You'd think that they of all people would know better. But their vision, like that of so many others caught up in the ideological frenzy of our time, is blinkered. They are comfortable having made a career of denouncing historical antisemitism of the right, but to the more blatant and much greater threat of leftist antisemitism today they close if not their eyes, then certainly their mouths. Hardly a peep out of them.
So, I thank you for having stated the case against such fallacious, ahistorical, and--as you rightly say--"invidious" comparisons. No self-respecting intellectual, indeed no thinking person, ought to be repeating this idiocy. They should be ashamed of themselves.
They're only injuring their own interests. The longer that moderate progressives remain silent about the extremists, the more the extremists characterize the movement. Libertarians and conservatives have to exert the same effort for their movements, but progressives have a code of silence dating to the days of the French Revolution and pas d’ennemis à gauche that imposes huge social costs for being sensible.
Thank you kindly for the material support - it makes a big difference to this little operation.
In an ideal world, I would have to agree with you that “they’re only injuring their own interests.” But in the "verkehrte Welt" of today, I really don’t know anymore. Somehow it’s possible for loud expressions of historical ignorance and the vilest distortion of contemporary reality to exist side-by-side with comfortable self-interest. Actions that ought to doom the careers of those who perpetrate them are rewarded, while supposed “moderates” who are ideologically adjacent yet choose to remain silent seem to suffer no consequences either. Like the corrupt media of our times, academia today has become a self-perpetuating bastion of ideological conformity and moral timidity. I sometimes discover myself fantasizing about what horrible thing would have to happen for those who ought to know better to wake up to reality. But then I remind myself that the “horrible thing” has in fact already happened—on October 7 most obviously; then more recently and on a smaller scale, Washington and Boulder—and these events haven’t made the slightest dent in the armored consciences of “moderate progressives.” Your pointing out the historical “code of silence” on the left that dates all the way back to the French Revolution, however, is most helpful to me in my efforts to make sense of it all. Thank you for that, and for all the work you’ve been doing so well and so courageously. I’m proud to be a supporter again of your “little” but quite valuable “operation.”
Good luck with that, Franklin. We're really talking about a quasi-religious cult, with all that implies. Perhaps, if it becomes too costly to carry on like cultists, they may desist or at least tone it down, but as long as their "truth" remains fashionable enough, don't hold your breath.
It's religion minus God and redemption. There are a lot of thinking progressives who see what's going on and hate it, but they're getting sidelined by the cultists.
Hendrich's comparison should be noted, but as a symptom.
The Kimbell Art Museum, being a privately endowed entity, has not been susceptible to directors and curators politicizing their presentations to smithereens in order to promote agendas packaged for the good crowd as Insightful Enlightenments. The current exhibition is no exception and the Kimbell's audiences wouldn't appreciate it if it was. So, there's nothing about that exhibition that might've spurred Hendrich's fashion-tinctured imagination in the direction of her comparison, just another of those ever more rococo elaborations on Hate Trump. I just heard a clip of Keith Olbermann blaming the Boulder attacks on Trump. It made about as much sense as Fendrich's reach. But who cares if it makes sense as long as it has the desired effect? Like, for instance, Nazi ceremonial regalia.
David Mamet's new book, "The Disenlightenment" is insightful.
If anything, Trump is much closer to Mussolini if we want to pick out an old-school fascist (which I don't, but the comparison is at least more fair). Both were opportunistic, though neither particularly inclined towards empire building. Both leaders went to elite universities but each in his own way was anti-intellectual. Both sought to control what was taught and how commerce was conducted...
But the vast difference in all comparisons is that we have 250 years of maintaining a democratic republic. All European nations in the early 20th century were still more or less monarchies, or had only recently transitioned from them. So yeah, any and all comparisons to 1930s Germany or Hitler in any form is absurd, and not just for the US, but even actual dictatorships across the planet. None come even close (thankfully!).
A million thanks, Franklin Einspruch, for this incisive commentary. It was exactly what I needed at this moment; indeed, its impact was such that upon reading the email version I felt compelled to navigate to your blog to resume my paid subscription, which I had put on hold because of the ballooning costs of maintaining so many various subscriptions.
As a Jew whose academic specialization was/is German literature, philosophy and culture, I have been disgusted by the specious comparisons made between Hitler and Trump, fascism and American democracy, false equivalencies that circulate widely throughout the progressive circles of today. Even some of my German friends, working academics whose field of expertise is antisemitism and the rise of Nazism, resort to such analogies. It's hugely disappointing--horrifying, in fact-- to me. You'd think that they of all people would know better. But their vision, like that of so many others caught up in the ideological frenzy of our time, is blinkered. They are comfortable having made a career of denouncing historical antisemitism of the right, but to the more blatant and much greater threat of leftist antisemitism today they close if not their eyes, then certainly their mouths. Hardly a peep out of them.
So, I thank you for having stated the case against such fallacious, ahistorical, and--as you rightly say--"invidious" comparisons. No self-respecting intellectual, indeed no thinking person, ought to be repeating this idiocy. They should be ashamed of themselves.
They're only injuring their own interests. The longer that moderate progressives remain silent about the extremists, the more the extremists characterize the movement. Libertarians and conservatives have to exert the same effort for their movements, but progressives have a code of silence dating to the days of the French Revolution and pas d’ennemis à gauche that imposes huge social costs for being sensible.
Thank you kindly for the material support - it makes a big difference to this little operation.
In an ideal world, I would have to agree with you that “they’re only injuring their own interests.” But in the "verkehrte Welt" of today, I really don’t know anymore. Somehow it’s possible for loud expressions of historical ignorance and the vilest distortion of contemporary reality to exist side-by-side with comfortable self-interest. Actions that ought to doom the careers of those who perpetrate them are rewarded, while supposed “moderates” who are ideologically adjacent yet choose to remain silent seem to suffer no consequences either. Like the corrupt media of our times, academia today has become a self-perpetuating bastion of ideological conformity and moral timidity. I sometimes discover myself fantasizing about what horrible thing would have to happen for those who ought to know better to wake up to reality. But then I remind myself that the “horrible thing” has in fact already happened—on October 7 most obviously; then more recently and on a smaller scale, Washington and Boulder—and these events haven’t made the slightest dent in the armored consciences of “moderate progressives.” Your pointing out the historical “code of silence” on the left that dates all the way back to the French Revolution, however, is most helpful to me in my efforts to make sense of it all. Thank you for that, and for all the work you’ve been doing so well and so courageously. I’m proud to be a supporter again of your “little” but quite valuable “operation.”
Good luck with that, Franklin. We're really talking about a quasi-religious cult, with all that implies. Perhaps, if it becomes too costly to carry on like cultists, they may desist or at least tone it down, but as long as their "truth" remains fashionable enough, don't hold your breath.
It's religion minus God and redemption. There are a lot of thinking progressives who see what's going on and hate it, but they're getting sidelined by the cultists.
Hendrich's comparison should be noted, but as a symptom.
The Kimbell Art Museum, being a privately endowed entity, has not been susceptible to directors and curators politicizing their presentations to smithereens in order to promote agendas packaged for the good crowd as Insightful Enlightenments. The current exhibition is no exception and the Kimbell's audiences wouldn't appreciate it if it was. So, there's nothing about that exhibition that might've spurred Hendrich's fashion-tinctured imagination in the direction of her comparison, just another of those ever more rococo elaborations on Hate Trump. I just heard a clip of Keith Olbermann blaming the Boulder attacks on Trump. It made about as much sense as Fendrich's reach. But who cares if it makes sense as long as it has the desired effect? Like, for instance, Nazi ceremonial regalia.
David Mamet's new book, "The Disenlightenment" is insightful.
Thank you for the local insight, and for the tip on the new Mamet book. Picking that up shortly.
If anything, Trump is much closer to Mussolini if we want to pick out an old-school fascist (which I don't, but the comparison is at least more fair). Both were opportunistic, though neither particularly inclined towards empire building. Both leaders went to elite universities but each in his own way was anti-intellectual. Both sought to control what was taught and how commerce was conducted...
But the vast difference in all comparisons is that we have 250 years of maintaining a democratic republic. All European nations in the early 20th century were still more or less monarchies, or had only recently transitioned from them. So yeah, any and all comparisons to 1930s Germany or Hitler in any form is absurd, and not just for the US, but even actual dictatorships across the planet. None come even close (thankfully!).
My favorite discussion of this is "The Original Fascist" by Angelo Codevilla.
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-original-fascist/